'No,' Grijpstra said, 'but de Gier is still there and maybe he'll learn something, although I doubt it. Our friends in there aren't silly.'
'That's the trouble,' the detective sighed. 'Criminals are cleverer than we are. They also have better equipment. Nice fast cars, for instance.'
He kicked one of the tires of the small VW as he said it. Grijpstra sighed as well and got into the driver's seat. De Gier had given him the keys. He drove off, dropped the detectives at their homes, and telephoned from a public call box.
'I know it's late,' he said to Constanze's mother,' but I would like to drop by for a few minutes and see your daughter. She hasn't gone to bed yet, I hope?'
'It isn't ten o'clock yet,' Constanze's mother said, 'and my daughter is still up and about. We'll be waiting for you.'
Grijpstra left the car in the courtyard of Headquarters and set out on foot. The long narrow Jacob van Lennepstraat didn't improve his mood. Its sidewalks were blocked by parked cars and he had to walk in the middle of the street, jumping aside every minute or so for gleaming motorized bicycles ridden by young mobsters taking fierce pleasure in revving their engines and missing the pedestrians by a hairbreadth.
Grijpstra gave in and walked in the one-foot-wide corridor left on the sidewalk by the parked cars. He could follow a TV program by glancing into the windows he passed. He was watching a police thriller and he saw fast cars taking hairpin corners with squeaking tires, handsome men firing pistols and shortbarreled machine pistols and one window gave him a view of a beautiful woman whose blouse was being ripped off by a bad man with a squint.
He rang the bell, the door opened immediately and Constanze's father welcomed him on the stairs.
'You are alone?' the father asked disappointedly. 'Your young colleague didn't come with you?'
'No sir,' Grijpstra said. 'He is very busy tonight. Is your daughter at home?'
'Yes,' the father said, 'second door on the right. She is doing some sewing in the bedroom, she has been busy for hours. I am sure she'll welcome a break.'
Grijpstra knocked, there was no answer and he opened the door.
'No,' Constanze's voice yelled. 'NO, please. Close that door.' All Grijpstra saw was a white fluffy cloud. He couldn't understand what it was. He closed the door quickly but the movement caused a fresh draft and the cloud became even more opaque.
'What the hell,' Grijpstra thought. He felt frightened. The reaction-program that his training had imprinted on his brain began to work. He was investigating a crime, dealing with suspected criminals, capable of causing violent death. His response to the sudden incomprehensible situation was automatic. The pistol was in his hand, he had loaded it as it came out of its holster.
'Oh NO,' Constanze yelled again.
The cloud became transparent and he quickly holstered the pistol.
There were feathers all over the room, small white feathers.
Constanze chuckled and then began to laugh.
'You do look a sight,' she said, and came close and began to pluck the little feathers off his suit. 'You even have some in your mustache,' she said. 'Here, let me take them out. You look like a white rooster.'
She laughed as she worked and Grijpstra stood very still.
'I was trying to fix mother's eiderdown but the cover was too worn so I was taking all the feathers out and I was just putting them into a bag as you opened the door. What a mess. Mother won't be pleased.'
'I am sorry,' Grijpstra said.
'It's all right. We better get out of here, I'll clean the room later.'
The story was told in the living room and Constanze's parents laughed.
'You better not tell my partner,' Grijpstra said. 'He'll tell everybody at Headquarters and it'll be the story of the day.'
'Don't worry,' Constanze said. 'I won't tell anyone. Why didn't he come with you tonight?'
'He is very busy,' Grijpstra said. Constanze smiled and opened a can of beer.
'Did you want to ask me something?'
'Yes,' Grijpstra said gratefully. 'We were told by the police in Paris who spoke to your employer, your uncle I believe, that you didn't come to work on the day your husband died.'
The question caused some disturbance in the room. Constanze's father lowered his newspaper and her mother dropped her embroidery.
The sweet expression on Constanze's face didn't change. 'That's right. I wasn't feeling well that day. I took my daughter to the creche and wanted to go to work but I went home instead and spend the day by myself, in bed, until it was time to collect Yvette again. I wasn't really ill, but very tired. I was playing truant really. It means I have no alibi, doesn't it?'
'But you were in Paris, weren't you?* her father asked. 'You can't be in Paris and in Amsterdam at the same time.'
'There are airplanes,' Grijpstra said.
'Yes,' Constanze said, 'but I wasn't in a plane, I was home, in bed, in Paris.'
'Why didn't you tell us?' Grijpstra asked.
'You didn't ask me,' Constanze said, 'and I thought that perhaps you would never ask me.'
The mother poured the rest of the beer can's contents into his glass. Her hand shook.
'Will you arrest me now?' Constanze asked.
'Should I?' Grijpstra asked.
'I didn't kill Piet,' Constanze said.
Grijpstra sipped his beer, put it down, and plucked another feather off his trousers.
Constanze began to laugh again.
'You really looked very funny just now. What did you have in your hands? A gun?'
Grijpstra shook his head and looked at her as if he expected her to say something important.
'I really didn't kill him, you know,' Constanze said. 'I admit I have thought about it at times. He did annoy me, what with all the girls he tried to make and the way he treated me.'
'But you didn't kill him,' Grijpstra said.
'No. I thought the best punishment would be to let him live. He suffered, in spite of all his so-called pleasures. He was a nasty depressive little man and he was attracting a lot of trouble. To allow him to go through all that trouble was my best revenge. And I can't kill anyway, I couldn't even kill a mosquito.'
'That's true,' the father said. 'When we have bugs here she would rather try to flap them out of the window using a newspaper. She is very soft-hearted.'
'Soft-hearted,' Grijpstra repeated, tasting the word.
'But you are a policeman,' the father continued. 'You know what people are like.'
'I don't know anything at all,' Grijpstra said, 'and it's time to go home. Thank you for the beer.'
'What about me?' Constanze asked. 'You want me to go with you?'
'No. You get that eiderdown fixed,' Grijpstra said. 'But I would like you to stay in Amsterdam until we know a little more. If you have to leave let us know first, please.'
Grijpstra walked home. In another part of the city de Gier was walking home as well. He walked carefully, worried that the alcohol in his blood might make him stagger. Gradually his condition improved.
That night he dreamt again. The little men in the bowler hats danced around him producing weird music by blowing into the barrels of their machine pistols. The gable houses of the inner city were leaning on each other, desperately trying to remain upright. Naked female nineteen-year-old bags of bones danced with the bowler-hatted little men and stopped every now and then to inject themselves. The canals were filled with mizo soup. Old Mrs. Verboom had joined the party as well, and she wasn't dressed, her breasts were shrunken empty bags of skin, she had stuck a rhododendron flower behind one ear. When Grijpstra waltzed past, in the arms of the directress of the mental home, de Gier woke up, squeaking with fear and disgust. He was wet through, fighting with his blankets, and Oliver, suddenly frightened and in a bad mood already because de Gier hadn't given him his evening meal, growled and attacked the feet that were kicking him. The wound bled and de Gier got up to bandage it. Oliver was clearly sorry, rolling over on his back and making endearing little sounds as if he were begging for forgiveness. De Gier tickled the animal's belly.
'Go back to sleep,' he said and squeezed the cat suddenly so that Oliver grunted deeply, the air from his
